A Look At The History Of 'Religious Freedom' Laws

WASHINGTON – The 1993 federal law protecting religious freedom, to which Gov. Mike Pence has pointed as the model for the state's controversial new law, grew out of two Native Americans' use of peyote in a religious ceremony.

The law sparked state versions after the Supreme Court said in 1997 that the federal statute couldn't apply to state and local governments.

But the Supreme Court expanded the application of the law at the federal level last year by ruling that its protections apply to closely held corporations that did not want to include contraceptive coverage in their health insurance plans.

Pence cited the court's decision in the Hobby Lobby craft store chain's dispute over contraception as an example of why Indiana needs its own law.

Here's how we got to that point: